Among the Realm

These are the 10 things I would like to accomplish in 2010. I put some thought into this list on goals that are actually attainable so hopefully I will make good on my promise to myself.

1. Reach my target weight of 180 and switch to an all organic eating lifestyle. I wasn’t sold on this until I watched this documentary –> Food Inc.

This is a short excerpt from the movie. I recommend renting this it might change the way you eat forever.

2. Go Green!

Living a better life is not just what we eat but how we live and treat the environment we live in. Here are some of the projects taken from this article that I would like to pursue this year.

• Build a clothes line. The dryer is one of the most energy guzzling appliances we use, so I plan to air out my laundry staring in the spring/summer.
• Insulate hot-water pipes/hot-water heater.
• Install a programmable thermostat – I can check this one off the list!
• Build a small garden
• Build a compost pile/worm bin- Worms eat your garbage… and leave you with rich healthy soil.
• Make a rain barrel collection system like the one below.

If your not into diy projects check out the many rain barrels collection systems at rain-barrel.com. That should keep me busy for awhile… and even if I complete one of these it is still a step in the right direction.

3. Spend more time with God. I fail miserably at this. Its amazing when I devote time to God how everything else falls into place, yet I don’t seem to devote time to God knowing that it will make my life easier (sometimes).

This is one of my favorite paintings by Salivdor Dali.

4. Complete at least 3 computer certifications. I want to start with my CompTIA A+, CompTIA Networking, and finish with CompTIA Security.

What is A+ Certification?

The A+ certification is vendor-neutral and consists of two exams. To pass, you must demonstrate knowledge of installing, configuring, upgrading, troubleshooting and repairing desktop systems. Updated in 2006 is the ability to choose the second exam from a list of three specialist exams that highlight one of the following roles: IT Technician, Depot Technician, or Help Desk Technician.

5. Take steps to become debt free. It is not possible for me to become debt free in 2010 but I want to take steps in doing so.

• refrain from using credit cards. I can’t tell you how many times I have fallen into this bad habit. I am ashamed actually of how debt I have accrued because of the ease of obtaining a credit card.
• give money to the church. I have always struggled in this area. I want to give but to be honest I am selfish, which leads to number six.

6. Be less selfish and become more involved with church. One reason I have a difficult time giving money (besides the selfish thing) to church is I don’t attend enough. If I become involved it would be easier for me to give.

7. Be more open-minded about making new friends, life, love, women, God and church.

8. Read more books.

9. Buy a kegerator and drink lots of beer from it. 10. Spend less time wasting time. Facebook your a big time waster and I hate you but I find myself spending countless hours reading other people’s status updates that I don’t care about.

I know its 2010 but I have fallen behind in blog posts and before I start my 2010 blog posts I need to wrap up 2009! Here are the pics from 2009 Holiday season.. enjoy!

Amish Turkey

My Thanksgiving beer!

Its tradition every year to play Scattergories after dinner.

This is also a tradition and Thanksgiving is the one time a year I build a fire. I have learned my fire building skills from my dad and hopefully one day will pass them on to my son.

Amie loves her turkey leg!

Amie is old enough to drive… so her Grandma gave her this cool present… a ton of money towards a new car!

Sarah finding her drum set from Grandma… I sent her on a scavenger hunt to find the drums!

Emily

The best cookies… ever!

I have some new plans for this blog… or lets say I want a new plan for this blog. I want to finish my 101 list of things I want to do during my life and blog more in general. I tend to go through phases where I enjoy to blog and then there are the phases where I become lazy. If any of you readers have any ideas drop me a line.

Welcome to a new category titled Iphone Pictures. Photography is a hobby that I enjoy and while I have really nice camera I always do not like to carry it with me. Going on the principle that the best camera is the one that is with you I decided to start this category. All the pics were taken and edited on the Iphone.

The original picture

The Final Picture

Blue Moon

My grades for the semester… A-, B-, C, A.

It is interesting what people think about when they hear the word hacker. You mention the word hacker and people think you are evil and up to no good. To learn more about hackers check out this video of Darren Kitchen from Hak5.

Hak5 is a great place to start if you are interested in learning about hacking and computers. Want to dive deeper check out this excellent collection of free courses about computers –> free courses.

Remember hackers are people too… and they just might save the world or your computer from a bad virus/spyware infection!

J to the Bizzle sporting a fantastic wig!

Brooke might hate me for this one…

But she will love me for this one…

Mr. Bones making an appearance for the festivities.

Again…

Bathroom

My soon to be bedroom and office

Another view of the bedroom and office

Here are some updated pics of the basement remodel. All the framing is finished and we are waiting on the electrician to come tomorrow then I will run cat5 cable for Internets.

Also had a shed installed recently… prepping the area was not a fun job. I had to dig out a 10 x 10 square and it had to be 4 inches deep. Then I had to fill it with crushed limestone. Just finished moving all the limestone today.

If you are the one or two people who actually read my blog you would have noticed that it has been unreachable for a few weeks. So, after a minor setback my blog is back! I have a lot of posts to catch up on.

What to be looking forward to in the near future…

Updated pics of the basement remodel!

A possible new design and plus a new direction for my blog.

The changes probably will not be drastic in the beginning and it will be spread out over the next few months as I come up with new ideas.

The renovations have begun on the basement… I will be posting pics as the work continues.

This next pic is unrelated but had to throw it in here. I snapped it one night when I got home from work which is about 2 am. Never seen a halo around the moon that big.

Browsing some websites within google I stumbled upon this page.

Being on a Mac sites like this do not affect me… but on a windows computer it would have been a different story. As you can tell from the picture above it resembles a windows machine and wants you to download a scanner to scan your “so-called” infected pc. This is not the case… if you continue to do this it will load spyware on your pc instead of removing it. I would close firefox  (yes I know all of you use firefox, if not grab it here.<– click here) to prevent infection, I would even close it from task manager and sometimes might be forced to close it this way.

If your computer does get infected by one of these nasty boogers, it will most likely need professional help. I posted a spyware removal guide for basic cleanups that could help you on your way to restoring your pc back to a healthy system.

Spyware Cleanups, ver. 1 <– Click Here

Spyware Cleanups, ver. 1.2 <– Click Here

Microsoft  released its new free anti-virus program which has received good reviews. In most cases instead of using AVG anti-virus this will become my program of choice.

Microsoft Anti-Virus <– Click Here

And for those of you who need some help understanding how to troubleshoot computers and what a tech does refer to this picture below.

computer repair

On the way home from The Killers concert!

The Killers

Gaslight Anthem at Bogarts

Bluejeans and white tshirts…